Peter J. Boyer: The Dirt on the Kentucky Derby

This year’s Kentucky Derby arrives with a surfeit of story material, which should help the NBC broadcasters who must fill three hours of airtime surrounding a two-minute horse race. Among the features of the 135th Derby are a hot thoroughbred from the West Coast named Pioneer of the Nile, and a sentimental favorite, General Quarters, from the one-horse barn of a seventy-five-year-old former school principal. But the true star of Saturday’s race may turn out to be the gray-brown sandy loam-and-clay surface that covers the mile-long oval track—the Churchill Downs dirt.

As I noted in a story this week, horse racing is a deeply troubled sport, with a shrinking fan base and a battered reputation, owing partly to disturbing incidents that marred two of the last three Triple Crown series. In 2006, the Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro, who seemed a genuine prospect to become the first Triple Crown winner in nearly thirty years, broke down in the Preakness and eventually had to be euthanized. The surprising runner-up at last year’s Derby was the filly Eight Belles, who suffered two broken legs just past the finish line and had to be put down on the track.

The incidents, viewed on television by millions of casual fans, brought unwelcome scrutiny to racing, and demands that the sport be made safer (if not altogether eliminated, as urged by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). One of the reforms that resulted from Barbaro’s breakdown was a trend toward artificial surfaces—commonly, a mixture of sand, synthetic fibers, and bits of rubber—which are believed to be easier on a horse’s legs. Racing authorities in California mandated the installation of artificial surfaces at all of the state’s major racetracks.

Inside the racing industry, the subject of fake dirt has proved deeply divisive, and many horsemen openly deplore the stuff. The safety benefits have not yet been conclusively demonstrated, but what is certainly known is that horses tend to perform differently on artificial tracks than they do on dirt. After Keeneland, in Kentucky, switched to Polytrack in 2006, the handicapper Andrew Beyer observed that the artificial surface “has given rise to a style of racing that is alien to most Americans. The most prized quality in thoroughbreds—speed—has become a liability.”

It has become a truism of the racing game that horses accustomed to winning on dirt—the surface at all three Triple Crown racetracks—stand a better chance on dirt than horses that have raced only on artificial surfaces. The morning-line favorite in this year’s Derby, I Want Revenge, was beaten by Pioneer of the Nile in California, but hasn’t lost a race since shipping East and running on dirt. No Derby winner has entered the race without a previous win on a dirt track, which is why Pioneer of the Nile, on paper, the best horse in the race, is deemed suspect by many horse players.

Adding to the uncertainty is the prospect of heavy rain showers in Kentucky, which could make for a sloppy track. That factor may benefit another of the race’s sentimental favorites, Friesan Fire, a dirt-track winner trained by Larry Jones, who handled Eight Belles and intends to retire at the end of this year.

With so many variables in racing, horsemen do not necessarily welcome the added unknown of an animal’s ability to adjust to different surfaces. Bill Mott, who has won more races at Churchill Downs than anyone, can only guess how his horse, Hold Me Back, will handle the Churchill dirt on Saturday. The horse won three of four races on synthetic surfaces, but lost badly on Belmont Park’s dirt track last fall. “Was that because it was dirt?” Mott mused to the Louisville Courier-Journal this week. “The horse doesn’t talk,” he added, helpfully. “So I can’t necessarily say that was it, and I can’t say that’s not it.”